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A BUFFALO HUNT IN THE '80's
By
Limestone (W.E.) Wilson
It was a week before Christmas, 1880. We were in Charlie Hayward's saloon in the little town
of Rockford Black Hills. There were four of us. William Osterhout a graduate of Annapolis,
but who preferred the lure of the west to entering the navy. He stood 6 feet 4 inches, was
finely set up, full of fun and active as a cat. There was David Ferguson, short and stocky,
and ready for anything that offered good clean sport. Then there was George McFadden slim
as a rail but wiry, and a good man to tie to in a pinch. Lastly there was the writer, 20 years
old, 6 feet 2 and growing some. I was known in that country as "Missou", a contraction of
Missouri the state I came there from. For the purpose of this story the others will be known
as Bill, Dave, and Mac. Bill said, "There are Buffalo 150 miles to the northwest". Mac said, "I
have a mighty good team of mules." Dave said, "My credit is good for plenty of grub." I said, "I
am a dandy cook."
So it was settled. The buffalo were fast disappearing, and with the number of hunters there
were in the field at that time, it could be only a year or two till the vast herds that once
roamed the western prairie would be but a memory. So if we were to have a buffalo hunt with
the chance of finding some, now was the time. Ordinarily, it would have been considered a
hazardous proceeding to start on such a trip so near midwinter. But the weather had been
fine all fall and at this time was mild and warm with no snow on the ground, and all the old
timers were prophesying an open winter. We figured that if the good weather held, and we
had reasonable luck, we could bring back a load of meat in a little more than three weeks.
But to be on the safe side we laid in supplies for six or eight weeks. Other equipment
consisted of a new Bain wagon with bows and cover, a 10x12 wall tent and a small stove to
heat it, and plenty of warm bedding. Bill and Mac were armed with Sharps rifles of heavy
calibre, and Dave had a '73 model Winchester while I had a 50 calibre Springfield. There was
plenty of ammunition for all the guns. In addition to my rifle I carried a Colts army pattern
45 and a huge Bowie knife a friend had given me. We pulled out just as dawn was peeping
over the ragged peaks east of town. Our route lay along Little Rapid creek to the head of that
stream. Then down Whitewood creek to Deadwood 25 miles distant from Rockford. The grade
was easy and the road good as the stage ran over it daily, and there was considerable other
travel. After a few miles through a dark and rugged canon we emerged into a flat valley where
the grass was of springtime greenness in the warm sunshine and even flowers were in bloom,
making it hard to realize that the time was late December. About noon we came to the
Bulldog ranch a stopping place kept by a Mrs. Erb better known as Mrs. "Bulldog" whose
meals had a reputation for excellence all over the Hills. Instead of making camp to cook our
dinner we decided to eat with Mrs. Bulldog, for we knew we would get a better dinner that
way and besides it didn't cost anything, for Mac was well acquainted with her and talked her
into trusting us for the dinner. Bill was the only one of us who had any money and we
needed that to buy oats for the mules. But we agreed to pay her with buffalo meat when we
came back. Mrs. Bulldog was a large handsome woman and a splendid performer on the
banjo which she played for us while we ate. There was a Mr. Erb, a small man with one eye.
But he said nothing and seemed to cut little or no figure around the place. Three days
previous to our visit four bandits had come along and held Mrs. Bulldog up. They explained
that they could rob better to music so one of them held a gun on her and forced her to play
while the others cleaned up everything that looked like ready money to the inspiring strains
of Marching through Georgia.
Mrs. Bulldog was sore about it yet. Not on account of her loss apparently, but because she
was forced to furnish music while being robbed. We afterwards learned that in the following
three weeks she was robbed twice more. When we came back we found that Mrs. Bulldog for
some reason or other had sold out and left the country, so she did not get the buffalo meat
we owed her. The mules having had a rest and a good feed made fast time as the road now

W. E. (Limestone) Wilson and 3 of his friends traveled on the government trail that ran from Fort Meade in the Black Hills to Fort Keogh on the Yellowstone. They were headed for Montana to hunt the last of the buffalo. They started out in December 1880 and almost froze to death on their trip. W. E. Wilson later lived at Maiden, Montana where he was a well-known miner looking for gold.

A BUFFALO HUNT IN THE '80's
By
Limestone (W.E.) Wilson
It was a week before Christmas, 1880. We were in Charlie Hayward’s saloon in the little town of Rockford Black Hills. There were four of us. William Osterhout a graduate of Annapolis, but who preferred the lure of the west to entering the navy. He stood 6 feet 4 inches, was finely set up, full of fun and active as a cat. There was David Ferguson, short and stocky, and ready for anything that offered good clean sport. Then there was George McFadden slim as a rail but wiry, and a good man to tie to in a pinch. Lastly there was the writer, 20 years old, 6 feet 2 and growing some. I was known in that country as "Missou", a contraction of Missouri the state I came there from. For the purpose of this story the others will be known as Bill, Dave, and Mac. Bill said, "There are Buffalo 150 miles to the northwest". Mac said, "I have a mighty good team of mules." Dave said, "My credit is good for plenty of grub." I said, "I am a dandy cook."
So it was settled. The buffalo were fast disappearing, and with the number of hunters there were in the field at that time, it could be only a year or two till the vast herds that once roamed the western prairie would be but a memory. So if we were to have a buffalo hunt with the chance of finding some, now was the time. Ordinarily, it would have been considered a hazardous proceeding to start on such a trip so near midwinter. But the weather had been fine all fall and at this time was mild and warm with no snow on the ground, and all the old timers were prophesying an open winter. We figured that if the good weather held, and we had reasonable luck, we could bring back a load of meat in a little more than three weeks. But to be on the safe side we laid in supplies for six or eight weeks. Other equipment consisted of a new Bain wagon with bows and cover, a 10x12 wall tent and a small stove to heat it, and plenty of warm bedding. Bill and Mac were armed with Sharps rifles of heavy calibre, and Dave had a '73 model Winchester while I had a 50 calibre Springfield. There was plenty of ammunition for all the guns. In addition to my rifle I carried a Colts army pattern 45 and a huge Bowie knife a friend had given me. We pulled out just as dawn was peeping over the ragged peaks east of town. Our route lay along Little Rapid creek to the head of that stream. Then down Whitewood creek to Deadwood 25 miles distant from Rockford. The grade was easy and the road good as the stage ran over it daily, and there was considerable other travel. After a few miles through a dark and rugged canon we emerged into a flat valley where the grass was of springtime greenness in the warm sunshine and even flowers were in bloom, making it hard to realize that the time was late December. About noon we came to the Bulldog ranch a stopping place kept by a Mrs. Erb better known as Mrs. "Bulldog" whose meals had a reputation for excellence all over the Hills. Instead of making camp to cook our dinner we decided to eat with Mrs. Bulldog, for we knew we would get a better dinner that way and besides it didn't cost anything, for Mac was well acquainted with her and talked her into trusting us for the dinner. Bill was the only one of us who had any money and we needed that to buy oats for the mules. But we agreed to pay her with buffalo meat when we came back. Mrs. Bulldog was a large handsome woman and a splendid performer on the banjo which she played for us while we ate. There was a Mr. Erb, a small man with one eye. But he said nothing and seemed to cut little or no figure around the place. Three days previous to our visit four bandits had come along and held Mrs. Bulldog up. They explained that they could rob better to music so one of them held a gun on her and forced her to play while the others cleaned up everything that looked like ready money to the inspiring strains of Marching through Georgia.
Mrs. Bulldog was sore about it yet. Not on account of her loss apparently, but because she was forced to furnish music while being robbed. We afterwards learned that in the following three weeks she was robbed twice more. When we came back we found that Mrs. Bulldog for some reason or other had sold out and left the country, so she did not get the buffalo meat we owed her. The mules having had a rest and a good feed made fast time as the road now was downhill most of the way to Deadwood where we arrived early and bought several sacks of oats then pulled on through making a number of miles beyond before camping time. We camped at a large spring where there was plenty of fine grass for the mules, and the night was so warm we did not bother to put up the tent but made our bed in the open with only the stars for shelter. Starting early the next morning we were soon crossing the beautiful and fertile Spearfish valley which even at that early date was pretty well taken up by ranchers. This valley was famous for its large crops of blue joint, which makes the best hay of any of the wild grasses. And it is the most beautiful hay I ever saw being a bright greenish blue color. I had seen lots of it hauled into Deadwood the previous winter and sold for the measly pittance of $100.00 per ton. Our noon camp was made on the banks of the Redwater, the largest and finest stream we were to see on our trip. By evening we reached the Belle Fourche of which the Redwater is a tributary. But at the crossing did not run nearly so much water as the Redwater. There was a deserted cabin at the crossing which we used for the night, but the weather was still so warm no shelter was really needed. Our objective for the next night was Stoneville on the Little Missouri 25 miles distant. We had been informed there was no good water on the road between the Belle Fourche and Stoneville, so we decided to start before daylight, make a dry camp for lunch and a feed for the mules and pull into Stoneville early in the afternoon so we could make some inquiries concerning the most likely place for finding buffalo. We reached Stoneville about 4 o'clock. The place consisted of seven or eight rough log shacks, the largest one being owned by Lou Stone who ran a store and post office in one end of the building and a saloon in the other, the two being separated by a partition. Stoneville was a sort of rendezvous for hunters, horse-thieves, road agents and whiskey traders, and sometimes bands of Indians came there to trade. So far as I know, Stone was not affiliated with any of them, but was merely there to sell them goods of which he had an enormous stock embracing everything needed on the frontier. Across the river was another cabin owned and occupied by Joe Bowers author of the famous song that bears his name. Joe was in the store when Bill and I called there. He was singing the song in a rather cracked and squeaky voice to a small crowd of listeners. His hair was long, falling over his shoulders in ropes and irregular strands so full of dirt and grease that its color could not be determined, but judging by his whiskers which were not quite so dirty, I think the color was black. It was Joe’s proud boast that he had not combed his hair since Sal had jilted him and married the redheaded butcher. Evidently, he had not washed either. His clothes were a mass of grease and caked blood garnered on his hunting trips, and altogether, it seemed to me that he must be the ugliest specimen of the human race. But that was before I had seen Mrs. Bowers. Stone told as that we still had sixty odd miles to go before we would reach buffalo country as there were very few buffalo till we reached Crow creek in Montana. We concluded to pull across the river and camp for the night. We selected a sheltered spot about 150 yards beyond the Bowers house for our camp. The summer there had been a dry one and there was very little feed for the mules. Bill and I had noticed a small stack of hay at the Bowers place and determined to try and get some of it. So we took a picket rope along and went to the house. There was the sound of a coffee mill inside when we reached the door. I knocked several times without result and then opened the door. A figure faintly resembling a human was seated at the other end of the room with a coffee mill in her (I judged it a “her” by the dress) lap grinding away.I stated our errand and she said "huh.", I repeated in a louder tone that we wished to get some hay. Again she said "huh", and got up and came toward us still grinding. She was a living exponent of nature’s mysterious ways. She was just about as big one way as the other, perhaps bigger. It is beyond me to give an adequate description of her face, for she had two teeth that blinded me to any other details of her countenance. They grew out of her upper jaw in front and protruded fully a half an inch straight out beyond her lips. In fact, tusks. As she reached the door the coffee ran out and she stopped grinding. Then raising my voice to the highest pitch, I again asked her if we could get some hay. She said we could if we paid for it. I told Bill to show her the rope asked her how much for what the rope would go around, and she said fifty cents. Bill paid her and we went to the stack which we found was not hay at all, but dead grass cut long after it had dried out. It was so short we had much trouble getting the rope on any of it. But by one of us holding the pile while the other built it up we managed to get the rope around a bunch about the diameter of a small wagon wheel and not much thicker. We started for camp with it and in crossing the fence about a quarter, of it slipped out of the rope. I told Bill to pull up the rope on what he had and I would bring the rest of it in my arms. I had just gathered up the fallen hay and started off when Mrs. Bowers came out. She saw Bill with hay in a rope, and she saw me with the hay in my arms. And she jumped to a conclusion. Then she opened on me. She first told me she had treated me like a lady and I had not treated her like a gentleman. Then- I had supposed a bullwhacker on the streets of Deadwood with a twelve yoke team when the mud was hub deep was the ultimate in profane humanity. But I had not heard Mrs. Bowers. I had heard a few ladies including Calamity Jane who in profane discourse were better than green hands. But their best efforts were indeed feeble in comparison to the stream of finery invective that now issued from beneath the tusks of Mrs. Bowers, who ran up a good average for all of them in a few seconds. I tried to explain, but could not get in a word. Telling her to go to hell, I took my hay and went to camp. The mules would not eat it, so we spread it on the ground under our bed. During the night there was a change in temperature and the morning air was quite wintry but without wind. Our destination for the noon camp was Willow Creek, to reach which we had to travel 12 miles across the Little Missouri valley, a flat and desolate expanse covered with a sparse growth of sage brush and buffalo grass, and then 2 miles over a low badland ridge bare of vegetation. We had two dogs with us. One, a long haired mongrel that was just a yellow dog which answered to the name of Foxy and belonged to Mac, while the other was a young greyhound that was jointly owned by Bill and Dave and was christened Bum. Dave had assured me that when we got into a flat country full of jackrabbits, Bum would keep us well supplied with meat. And looking at Bums long slim legs and slender clean-cut body, it sounded reasonable. It was not long till a jack hopped out right by the side of the road. Bum saw him and without any urging started after him. Bum gained rapidly on the rabbit and seemed just about to pick him up when the rabbit seeing what was behind him concluded to do some real running. The way he left that dog behind was not slow. In a short time Bum came back looking extremely foolish and no amount of plain or fancy talk could induce him to chase another jack. We reached Willow creek in good shape and decided it was called Willow Creek because there were no willows there. But there was plenty of dry ash and box alder trees which came handy as the weather was steadily growing colder. After a good dinner we started out with the intention of making Two Tree for our night camp. As we were pulling away from Willow Creek we saw our first sage hens. And what a sight. The whole flat as far as the eye could reach was literally covered with them. We shot 5 or 6 of them and as the weather was not quite cold we threw them into the wagon without cleaning them. Out a couple of miles we began to see antelope, and by midafternoon we were in a country that was fairly beaming with them. Some bands had at least 300 in them. They had not been hunted and were not very wild. We all got out our rifles and each took a shot at a large band that appeared to be about 200 yards away. Our bullets all fell short and the antelope disappeared over a ridge in the twinkling of an eye. The road made a turn here and we got where we could see a cross section of the country and found the antelope had been near 400 yards from us when we shot at them. The prong horn antelope is the most deceiving animal to shoot at I know of. And the novice will almost invariably undershoot them. The country here was rolling. A succession of small ridges and shallow swales as far as we could see, and covered with a scattered growth of dwarf sage and very little grass not a stick of timber in sight, and a bad place to be during a blizzard. The sky was threatening so we pushed along rapidly and reached Two Tree well before dark.
It was not a swell looking place. There were two trees there all right and a shallow coulee that had a small waterhole which after the ice was chopped through furnished water enough for ourselves and the mules. The trees were very large cottonwoods, one of them over 4 feet in diameter but not over 30 feet tall. On such a bleak windswept expanse timber could not grow tall and the wonder was that these two trees had grown and weathered the gales there. We could see for ten miles in three directions, and the other direction was the one from which we had come and there had been no timber since we had left Willow creek 14 miles back. The Two Trees had recently been cut down by someone who had camped there, and every bit of bark had been stripped from them for firewood. We cut some wood from one of the trees but found it was so green and wet it was only useful to put a fire out with. The only wood we could get that would burn, was dead sage roots which we gathered from the banks of the cut coulees. While the boys were getting sage roots I started cooking us upper. It was nearly dusk when a husky specimen of humanity came staggering uncertainly into camp and gaspingly asked me if we had any tea. I disliked him instantly. He was a large man weighing perhaps 200 lbs., and there was a week’s growth of beard on his face that hid his countenance. But his small pig eyes were too close together and had a shifty sneaking look. I told him we had no tea but that I was making coffee. He said he guessed that would do, and just then the other boys came into camp and the fellow unfolded a weird story about how long he had been traveling without food or sleep. The road we were following was the government trail that ran from Fort Meade in the Black Hills to Fort Keogh on the Yellowstone. There was a telegraph line followed the road and there were telegraph stations in charge of soldier operators, at distances varying from 25 to 60 miles apart. The latter distance was the one between Stoneville and Crow Creek. As he came from toward Crow Creek we felt pretty sure he had left that place that morning and taken with him an ample lunch, and 30 miles was not a big day’s walk. But of course we could not turn him away and told him he was welcome to stay the night with us. After supper at which he did not eat at all like a starving man, he at once constituted himself the life of the party. After borrowing my meerschaum pipe and some tobacco, he spent the evening entertaining us with stale anecdotes and pointless jokes and wound up by trying to sell us a suit of soldier clothes he had on under his outer garments.
Then we were certain he was a deserter from the garrison at Keogh. We spread our bed on the ground and he grumbled loudly at having to sleep on the outside, but Mac told him he was needed for a windbreak, and he subsided. Before bedtime I became dissatisfied with our fire and called for a volunteer to help me cut a telegraph pole. The poles were large and one of them would make a lot of wood. But the fellows were all afraid, saying we would be arrested and pay a heavy penalty. I told them there was no use in us freezing, and that with someone to help me, we could ease the pole away from the wire and knock the insulator off and thus get the pole without breaking the wire.
That we were 30 miles from anywhere and would be gone in the morning so it could not be told who had done it. But none of them would help, so I took the ax and went for the pole alone. The pole proved so heavy it got away from me and fell on the wire breaking it. I felt this was bad business, in a country where there was still danger of Indian outbreaks, but concluded that when the government sent out a detail to fix the line, they might find some other hunters camped there on whom the soldiers could shoulder the blame. I chopped the pole in short pieces and our guest came and helped me carry some of it in. It proved to be worse than the cottonwood. The pole was pine put in with the bark on and was so wet and soggy it quickly put out the little fire we had, and then we went to bed. After breakfast the next morning our guest told us he hoped we would have good luck on the hunt and said, "Boys, when you get back to Deadwood look me up. I would like to hear how you came out." After he was out of sight and we were packing up, we found our best butcher knife, a comb, and a pound plug of chewing tobacco had taken a fancy to him and gone with him. The weather was colder and some snow was falling. The road was upgrade making the pulling heavy, the country was a dreary waste and stretched ahead seemingly endless, looking the same in all directions. We traveled till about 1 o’clock when Bill who was a fast walker and had been scouting ahead, came to the wagon and told us that a short distance ahead and about a hundred yards from the road, there was an old trappers dugout in a bank on the side of the coulee that would be a good place to camp. After inspection, we were all in agreement as to stopping there for the night. It was well sheltered from the wind and there was a fireplace dug into the bank at the backside, while the room was plenty large enough to make down our bed. An idea occurred to me and I said "fellows, this is Christmas eve, what’s the matter with spending Christmas here and giving the mules a rest. Then I will thaw out a couple of those sage hens and we will have a genuine Christmas dinner." The idea took. There was a little wood in front of the dugout but none in sight on the landscape. Bill and Mac went off on a scout for wood while Dave started cleaning the rubbish out of the dugout and I began preparing a meal that would be both dinner and supper, for it would be about 3 o’clock when we were ready to eat. I built a fire outside as it would take some time to clean the dugout. While I was starting the cooking Bum came up to the fire and whined a little. I looked at him and saw him shiver and give a couple of jerks. I shouted to Dave to bring the lard pail, that Bum had some strychnine. We heated the lard and poured a lot of it into the dog but it was no use. In a short time he was dead. We looked around and found an old dried antelope carcass that had evidently been bait for wolves. Foxey true to his name smelled of it but would not eat it, nor did he get any poison on the trip and got home with us in good shape. Bill and Mac came back and reported that they had found a couple of small dead trees that would make fuel enough for our stay there. After supper they took one of the mules and dragged the wood in. Christmas morning dawned cold and stormy but our dugout with a blanket for a door was snug and warm.
We thawed out a couple of the sage hens which I intended to turn into roast turkey. When cleaning them they seemed to emanate a rather strong odor of sage. I thought it would be well to parboil them and take the sage smell off before putting them to roast in the Dutch oven. I boiled them an hour and the odor seemed stronger than before, so I drained the water off and put them in fresh water. Altogether I changed the water six times and then threw the birds away, and we had some very nice bacon and beans for dinner.
The next morning it was colder and more snow was falling. But if we were going to get any buffalo we must keep going for we had seen no signs of them in the country we had passed over. In the whole country from Stoneville to where we were there was very little feed for buffalo or anything else, though the large herds of antelope we were seldom out of sight of seemed to be thriving. We had been told the Crow creek basin was well grassed, and we believed it could not be very far ahead so we pulled out into the storm. All the way from Willow creek the road had been slightly upgrade. But after we had traveled about 6 miles from the dugout the road began to descend and the country assumed a different aspect. We could not see far through the snow filled air, but there seemed to be more grass and less sage. We did not camp at noon and about 3 o’clock we saw the tops of some trees above the rim of a coulee at one side of the road. We had passed the timber before we no¬ticed it but we stopped the team while Bill and Mac went to in¬vestigate. They came back and reported that it was a splendid place to camp with plenty of wood, water, and feed for the mules. They said there was another party of four already there who told them that while buffalo were not plentiful, we could get all we wanted in a week or less. So we turned round and pulled down into the coulee which we found fully up to the advertisement. The coulee was deep enough to shelter our tent from the wind. The bottom 50 feet wide and covered with long grass and the sides were lined with dead cedars. And there was a spring of good water. We pitched our tent close to that of the other party which also consisted of four people, Buffalo Johnny, Ramrod Frank, Old Man Richards, and Lazy Elmer a boy of 14. Early the next morning I discovered where 12 buffalo had crossed the coulee in the night less than 100 yards below our camp. Dave and I shouldered our guns and started after them. We followed the trail till we came to a long ridge that ran at right angles to the way we were going, and we felt pretty sure they would be in sight from the top of the ridge. We crawled carefully up to where we could see over and had our first sight of wild buffalo. However, they were at the bottom of a wide draw fully 300 yards away. This was too far for Dave’s gun and father than I wanted to shoot at them. But there seemed nothing else to do. We could see ahead 4 miles and there would be no chance to come on to them unobserved in that distance. I concluded to try a shot at them. Whether or not I hit one, I do not know. But the herd instead of running in the direction they had been going, turned back toward the ridge till they were nearly to the top and then swung: toward us and went by as in single file not 50 yards away. There was no chance to miss such targets as they made. We pumped lead into them and I think hit every one of them but not a buffalo fell or even gave the slightest indication of being hit, although one of them seemed to be lagging back as they went over a hill 200 yards away. We went down to where they had went by as and found the snow covered with streaks of hair made by the bullets that went through the animals. We had aimed behind the shoulders and we found later that the heart and lungs of a buffalo lay well up between the shoulders the heart lying very low down. If we had known where to hit them, we could easily have got the whole bunch and our hunt would have been ended. We had seen one of the buffalo falling behind so we went to the top of the hill to investigate. There we saw an unforgettable sight. One buffalo was badly hurt and had stopped. The herd seeing he could not keep up had halted about a quarter of a mile away and one of them had come back and was assisting the wounded one to cover. The wounded one was staggering and the helper was walking beside him and leaning against him to hold him up, and steering him into a coulee. When the wounded bull was out of sight, the other one kept on down the coulee hidden from us and joined the herd in a casual sort of way and they went on. It was indeed a touching example of a buffalo’s intelligence, and sympathy for his kind in distress. I think both Dave and I had lumps in our throats, and we felt worse because of the fact that every one of the herd had been hit and some of them would later die of their wounds. But we must get the one left behind anyway. We advanced carefully and came in sight of him about 75 yards away. He at once got up and started to run. I gave him a shot that broke his back and brought him down. As soon as we saw he could not get up, we went to him and to put him out of his misery I shot him through the head. But he merely jerked his head slightly as the bullet passed through his skull from side to side. I had but 2 cartridges for the rifle left and I shot them both through his head, but, as before he just jerked his head a little each time, and lay there with his head up ap¬parently unconcerned. Dave was out of ammunition but I had a Colts 45 in my belt and drew that. I fired the six shots there I supposed his heart was but he still lay as before looking as though he was not interested. I was now out of ammunition and felt like crying because of my inability to end his suffering. We stood around for perhaps l0 minutes then the bull turned over on his side and gave up the ghost. We dressed him and examining him carefully found that of all the bullets that passed through him not one had pierced the lungs or heart, all being too far back. And the ones I fired through his head were too high. A buffalo’s brain lies low in the skull we found. We both vowed such a thing would not happen again. It was too much like Apaches torturing a victim. We reached camp about dark and found Bill and Mac there with supper ready and we were ready also as we had eaten nothing since 5:30 that morning. I told them we had got a buffalo but were careful not to tell how we got it. They had seen nothing in an all-day hunt. After supper I discovered that I had lost my pipe a valuable Meerschaum. I had carried it in my inside coat pocket, and was sure it had slipped out while we were crawling over the ridge toward the buffalo. We had not intended to hunt the next day but I told Dave I was going to start early before it began snowing again and hunt that pipe. In the morning Dave said he would go with me as we might get a shot at some antelope. It was about 4 miles to where I thought the pipe was, and as it was not very cold we did not put any vests under our coats for we intended to make a quick trip and be in camp again before noon. I was lucky with the pipe. It had a rubber stem and when we arrived where we had done the crawling I saw the black mouthpiece sticking and inch above the snow where I was still 50 yards away.
After the pipe was filled and going full blast we started back to camp. On one side of us there was a ridge running parallel to the direction we were going, and we decided to go up and see what was on the other side of it. Reaching the summit we saw a long wide valley stretching away to the northwest, and down the center of the valley ran a deep cut coulee which headed just below where we were standing. Near the brink of this coulee and about 4 miles distant we could see 5 buffalo that appeared to be feeding. If they did not move away it would be an easy matter to get them by going down to coulee. We knew that buffalo were getting scarce so we concluded to make a try for these. We slipped down into the coulee which proved to be very crooked, so I think we must have walked 10 miles by the time we reached the place where we had seen the buffalo. But they were not there. They had moved out about 500 yards from the coulee and between them and us stretched a flat as level as a floor and covered with a foot of snow without a tree or shrub to mar its whiteness. I had been told that like deer, buffalo had no eye for form, and would only notice objects that were moving. That if a person was careful to not move when they were looking, he could walk right to them provided he kept to the leeward of them so they could not scent him. I knew that would work on deer for I had tried it and walked to within 10 feet of a buck feeding on a level piece of prairie. Every time I saw him start to raise his head I stood stock still and the buck seemed to look everywhere except at me. There was no other way so we decided to try it on the buffalo. But instead of walking we crawled. The little breeze there was favored us. Buffalo usually feed up the wind and 4 of these faced away from us while the other one was quartering. I was in the lead and kept my eyes on the the buffalo while going as fast as I could. We had made over half the distance to them when I saw one raising his head. I froze instantly. Dave following my lead. Of course the bull saw us. He looked right at us and couldn’t help but see us on that dead white expanse. But he was not alarmed and after gazing at us a moment resumed his feeding. We started on again and shortly another one looked up with the same result as before. There were 4 bulls and a cow. The latter a splendid animal nearly coal black. We moved on again and were now within140 yards of them when the cow looked up. I was just making a step and had my left leg off the ground and my body well forward and my rifle at arm’s length ahead of me. I froze in that position. The cow regarded us suspiciously. We could see the steam from her nostrils as she sniffed, and sniffed, and sniffed. It seemed to me an age that she looked at us and I told Dave I could not hold that position much longer and we would have to begin shooting. Just then the cow turned her head away from us and began feeding again. I was trembling all over and had to rest before we started again. Without any more stops we went to within 40 yards of them, and then straightened ourselves to a sitting position and opened up on them. We got two down within 50 yards of where they stood at our first shots. Two got away over a ridge and the other one, an enormous bull, was so badly wounded that he went off at right angles from the other two and went into a small depression about 300 yards away and evidently laid down as he did not appear on the high ground on the other side. We decided to dress the two we had and then go after the wounded one. After dressing the two we went carefully up to where the wounded bull had disappeared. It had grown colder so the temperature was about zero, but as we neared the place where the bull was I took off my mittens to handle the rifle and took two cartridges out of my belt and held them in my left hand in order to load quick if necessary. Dave insisted I should lead as I had a heavy calibre gun. He had to climb over a large snowdrift and just after we crossed it there was the bull standing up facing us not over 30 feet away. He started for us in¬stantly. I fired aiming between his eyes, but the shot had no apparent effect. By this time my fingers were nearly frozen and in trying to throw a shell into the gun I dropped them both in the snow. I yelled, "get out of sight quick Dave" and I jumped back over the snowdrift and to one side crouching in under it where there was an overhang. There were some sand dunes a little to one side that Dave could have reached easily, but Dave didn’t wait to take bearings, he started straight down the draw for a cut coulee that was about 125 yards distant. The snowdrift slowed the bull up as he sank into it, but he wallowed through it and passed by within 10 feet of me, but he could see Dave and kept after him. It was an interesting race. Dave was a very fast runner, but it was soon evident that the bull was faster, and as he drew up on Dave I became thoroughly alarmed. I could do nothing, for my fingers were so stiff and numb I could not get a shell out of my belt. Dave reached the coulee and plunged in and the bull which did not seem from where I was to be over 10 feet behind, plunged in after him. Dave dodged him and came back up the same side while the bull went across. He turned and saw Dave and started back. There was a small patch of sage brush about 50 yards to one side and I yelled to Dave to run to that and lie down, and he done so before the bull came out of the coulee. There, seeing no one, he stopped with his head toward Dave and began to paw and snort, clouds of vapor issued from his nostrils in the chill air like steam from the exhaust of an engine. His weight was over 1600 lbs. and as he stood scanning the landscape for more worlds to conquer, he was a bad looker. I called to Dave and told him not to shoot. The 44 Winchester was an efficient buffalo gun in the hands of an expert, but neither of us were experts, and the fact that my 50 x77 bullet had no effect on the bulls head would make it appear foolish to shoot with a 44x40, and after a short period of pawing and snorting the bull had come to a stand facing Dave. About 25 feet to one side of me was a low ridge that ran clear down to the coulee connecting with it about 75 yards below where the bull stood. I crawled carefully over this ridge and was out of the bull’s range of vision. I stopped to beat my arms around my body and get circulation in my fingers, and then I put a shell in my gun and ran as fast as I could for the coulee. Gaining it I walked carefully along till I was opposite the bull and crawling quietly up the side was within 15 feet of the bull as he stood broadside to me. I knew now where a buffalo’s heart was, and I aimed for it and hit it. In a few minutes he was dead and we were glad of it. Dave said the reason he did not shoot, was because the bull seemed to be in a bad humor and a shot might offend him. It was getting colder and had clouded up and we hurriedly dressed the bull, but before doing so we looked to see what my shot at his head had done. The hair of the bull’s forelock was 9 or 10 inches long and was filled with a solid mass of burrs and caked mud. My bullet had penetrated this but stopped 3 inches from the bull’s skull transformed into a circular flat piece of lead about the size of a silver dollar. It was getting late and beginning to snow, we had eaten nothing since 5; 30 that morning and felt we could do justice to a meal so we started for camp. Putting into the opposite aide of the valley where we stalked the buffalo was a large sag or swale that from where we now were, we could see extended nearly to our camp about 5 miles away. We apprehended no difficulty in following this swale to camp even if darkness descended before we got there. We had crossed the valley and just reached the mouth of the swale when a large buffalo came out of a small coulee not 30 yards away and started off. I raised my rifle and fired. That was one buffalo I killed with one shot. His heart was pierced and he raised on his hind legs, pawed the air for a moment with his front feet and fell dead. By the time we had the bull dressed it was dark and snowing fast. We started for camp again and had walked perhaps half an hour when I heard the faint report of a gun apparently straight ahead and a little later caught a faint flash of flame also straight ahead. We were walking side by side and Dave said he had heard nothing and seen nothing and farther said he was sure we were going in a wrong direction. I was pretty sure I had heard the gun and seen the flash of fire and later found I was Old Man Richards said he went on top of the hill and tried to build a fire for us to see. He put on some greasewood which flashed up a moment and then the wind blew it away, and because of the gale he could not start it again. Then he had fired his shotgun. We kept going and were facing the wind which was all we had to guide us as we could not see 20 feet ahead of us. Eventually we got into what seemed a sort of badlands. Weird fantastic shapes loomed ghostlike all around us mockingly. We were still facing the wind so it was evident the wind had shifted and thrown us off our course. I said, "Dave, we are lost", and he agreed we were. There was no use in wandering around in the darkness, and we concluded to get into a coulee out of the wind and wait for daylight. As we started on I saw a long dark object on the ground to one side of us and went over to investigate. I gave a whoop of joy as I recognized what it was, a pitch pine tree 50 feet long, over 2 feet in diameter with a lot of large roots. Now we were all right. I could chip some slivers from the side and set fire at the root and it would burn all night. Besides, we would have something to eat. Fearing we might have trouble reaching camp., I had taken the heart of the last buffalo we killed and strung it over my gun barrel, thinking if we got lost and could find some timber, we could thaw the heart and roast it before the fire .I had not seen a stick of timber all day except a few straggling trees on a ridge 3 or 4 miles beyond where we stalked the buffalo and we were overjoyed at our luck in finding this tree. We could see no other trees near us but that is often the case.
A piece of pitch will be found where all the other timber is burnt. I got out my heavy bowie knife and tried to drive it behind a slight rib that projected from the side of the trunk but the knife did not penetrate. The tree was petrified. It was much harder rock than any of the surrounding sand formation. I think our spirits sank a little at the discovery, but we wandered on in search of a place where we would be shielded from the wind. After about an hour we gave it up. We found a double row of small sand dunes between which the wind sucked and swirled the snow out keeping the ground bare. There we took our stand to wait till morning. But we could not stand. We were dressed light and it was 40 below zero as we learned afterward, and there was a stiff wind. There was a stretch of 20 yards of bare ground between the dunes and back and forth on that we walked and ran, back and forth, back and forth, would the dawn never come. If we stood still for a minute or two we were freezing, so back and forth we kept going. I had found that on occasions of heavy mental stress, swearing relieved my feelings. This was an occasion, and I swore quite fluently. I set up a claim that the Almighty had shut off all daylight and I more than half believed it. We had no watch with us and it seemed to me that ages had gone by since there had been daylight. Dave had been very quiet for a while when suddenly he said in a weak quavering voice, “don’t swear that way Missou, we may never get out of this". I was astonished. At home Dave could swear in a pretty husky way himself, and was utterly fearless. He had whipped Mike Riley the bully of Rockford in a fair fight that showed he had plenty of sand for Mike was much the larger man. Dave was several years older than I and I had deemed myself fortunate in having him for a hunting partner. And now he had wilted. I swore in earnest. After I had about ceased to expect it, the dawn came. When it got daylight the storms suddenly quit for perhaps 2 minutes and we could see the landscape. To the north in the dim distance appeared a long ridge with a few trees on it and I said that was the ridge beyond where we killed the buffalo and that not more than a mile east of us was the swale we had tried to follow to camp. But Dave said it didn't look anything like the ridge and that the swale lay to the west of us. I told him I was going east any way till I found out about it. I started and he followed but kept insisting it was wrong. The storm had commenced again and was harder than ever so we could not see more than 50 yards. Dave kept, protesting against the direction we were going so strongly that I began to feel less certain that I was right, and I finally told him to hold my gun and I would go over the next raise and if I did not find the last bull we killed, I would go back with him. I did not find the bull, but if I had crossed the next raise and went 100 yards father I would have found him. I discovered this when we hauled in our meat and I looked for and found my tracks in the snow. But I went back to Dave and shouldered my rifle and the bull’s heart again and we trudged onward in the direction Dave said was right. The snow was about a foot deep and pretty well packed by the wind, but we floundered along till perhaps 3 P.M. We had given finding the swale and were now looking for the telegraph line. I told Dave I believed we were going parallel with it and I thought it lay to the left of us. He at once claimed it was to our right. I was fed up with his contrariness and I said, "Dave I am going to the telegraph line and you can go to hell if you want to" and I struck off to the left. He followed in less than an hour the telegraph line was in sight, and the question then was, in which direction was camp. It seemed to me it must be to the left and as usual Dave thought it was to the right. I told him that where we killed the buffalo was between 5 and 6 miles north of the camp and from the appearance of the country we had been traversing it did not seem possible that we had worked far enough back to get south of camp, but I said I did not know. I told Dave if he thought camp was to the right, to go that way and I would go to the left, and if we kept to the road one of us would get to camp and could send out help for the other, and I started off. Either Dave just wanted to be contrary or was afraid to be alone for he followed me. Dave had the worst of it in traveling through snow. I was 6 feet 2 in. tall and he was only 5 feet 7 in. Still he was strong and husky and I think it was his mental attitude that made him so worn out physically. He had given up ever getting to camp, while the thought that we would not get there had never entered my head. Another thing, Dave had been eating snow. I knew better than that and warned him against it, but he would eat it. He had attempted to eat some of the bull’s heart raw, but it was frozen so it was hard as flint. After daylight the temperature had risen to 18°or 20° above zero which was lucky for us for during the day we did not suffer from cold. It if had remained below zero we would certainly have frozen. Along the road we found the traveling some better for the wind had blown the snow off in places. I kept the lead and stepped short so Dave could step in my tracks.
But he was getting pretty wobbly and after we had went perhaps a couple of miles he sat and then laid down beside the road and said he was done and could go no farther. I talked to him about his foolishness in quitting when we were within a mile of camp, although I did not know where we were, and told him to brace up and come on. I finally got him on his feet but he said he would throw his gun away as he could carry it no longer. But I said give me the gun and I will carry it. I am not trying to show myself a hero, in fact, my feelings were anything but heroic. But I was still going fairly strong, and did not propose to have a brand new Win¬chester thrown away while I was able to carry it. I still had the bull’s heart which was quite a weight but I hung on to it in the hopes of finding timber. I shouldered the Winchester and we trudged on. I had to go slow to accommodate Dave’s gate and at length told him to take hold of the tail of my coat. In this way, we made fair progress and in a short time I saw a patch of buck brush I recognized.
I told Dave we were all right, the camp was just over the hill. He insisted we were a thousand miles from camp and when nearly to the top collapsed and I could do nothing with him. I looked over the ridge and could see the campfire not 100 yards away but could not make Dave believe it. I went down to camp and found no one there but old man Richards and Elmer. It developed that none of the others who had went out the morning before were back yet. The old man went up with me while we grasped each side of Dave’s coat collar and dragged him down over the snow. Richards had a large pot of soup ready and Dave straightened up and we each ate a big dish of it and were going for more when the other 4 boys came in. They had not been lost but were late with their kill and were afraid they would get lost if they pulled for camp in the storm. So they went into a patch of timber, built a fire and stayed there till 2 P.M. that day because of the storm, then pulled out and gave the horses their heads and got in all right. Bill and Mac began to kick because we did not have supper ready, saying they had been out all night with nothing to eat but some buffalo meat they stuck on sticks and roasted by the fire. I said, "Is that so? Well now that was sure a tough deal." Then I explained why we did not have supper ready. The next morning Dave was himself again. We all felt pretty well bunged up however, and took a day’s rest before going after our meat of which we now had more than enough. The second morning Bill and Mac took the team and went for their meat while Dave and I went on a scout to find the best route to reach our kill with the team. The sky had cleared but it was zero again. We could see the country plainly and found the badlands where we had spent the night. They were several acres in extent and there were several of the petrified trees. In daylight no one would mistake them for anything but what they were. But at night we were fooled completely. We found and easy way to get kill taking only the hind quarters, being ignorant of the fact that the choice meat of a buffalo is the hump. We intended to start for home,--the following morning but about 3 A.M. a blizzard arrived. It lasted 4 days and kept everybody in tents when not rustling wood. Mac had put a small mercury thermometer in our outfit when we left home saying he wanted to keep a record of the weather during our trip. The record was not accurate because the thermometer froze up too often. It was frozen three days during this first blizzard then it thawed out a little the fourth day only to freeze up again the next day. For a whole month there was a continual succession of storms and 10 degrees below zero was a warm day. We had a stove in our tent which kept as quite comfortable, but the matter of food for ourselves and the mules was becoming a problem. We had plenty of flour and with the meat could get along for some time. But when the oats were down to half a sack, we decided to pull out for home. The Richards party were also short of horse feed and concluded to go too. They had 4 horses for their wagon and said they would start first and break the road for us. Early in the morning we loaded our outfit and with 8 quarters of our meat pulled out on the trail of the Richards wagon. Before we had gone a mile it was plain the mules could not make it with our load. The snow averaged 16 inches in depth, was packed by the wind and frozen stiff. Having a broken trail to follow did not help much for the wind granulated the surface of the snow and the trail drifted over quickly. We dumped off 6 of the quarters of meat and went ahead. For a while the road kept on high ground and in many places the snow had blown off so that we made about 10 miles the first day. We had taken wood enough from camp to cook 2 meals expecting to make Willow Creek in 2 days on one meal a day. We were six days in reaching Willow Creek and for firewood we burned first our wagon bows. Then the spring seat, and last the wagon box which was cut to a height of 3 inches when we reached timber.
In the mornings we would cook breakfast and eat all we could stuff into ourselves. Then hitch up Jack and Kate the mules, and travel till it began to get dark, when we would unhitch the mules give them a little oats and turn them loose to rustle what feed they could. We then would spread our tent flat on the snow place the bedding on one end of it and turn the other end up over us. Each days travel was a repetition of that of the previous day. All day long 3 of us would keep ahead of the team going back and forth breaking, the road for them. One man had to stay with the team to keep them going and we took turns at that. In three or four days the Kate mule got so weak she could pull nothing. So we just used her to hold up one end of the neck yoke and tied Jack back so he had to pull the entire load. Jack had extra good stuff in him or we would not have got through. Kate when in good flesh was a thousand pound mule, but she had now got down to 600 lbs. or less. She was so weak that in going up a pitch she would often stumble and fall. When down, she would just lay there till the 4 of us got around her and raised her up. After a while if we let go of her too soon she would flop down again and it got so we would hold her up a while till she got her balance. Bill said we had better count the hairs in her tail as there might be more on one side than the other which would overbalance her. She could eat oats faster than Jack and seemed to be all right except for strength. Both of them would gnaw greedily on frozen buffalo meat and they ate one of the quarters by the time we reached Stoneville. Finally Kate got so bad that when we came to a hill we would take her out and one of us would take the end of the neck yoke and the other 3 push till we got to the top and then we would put her in again. All this time it was from 10°to 25° below zero. The Richards party arrived at Willow creek a day ahead of us but waited for us to get in. As we pulled into Willow creek we met a party of 3 men just starting out the way we had come from. On looking into their wagon they seemed short on equipment. It was getting colder and beginning to blow and snow, and we advised them strongly to pull back to Willow creek and stay till the weather moderated. We told them they would find no wood for over 40 miles, and called their attention to what we had to do to our wagon for just one cooking fire a day. But they only grinned at us and said they had come out to have a little fun hunting buffalo, and had already put in a week a t Willow creek and were tired of it, and were going on. After we got back to the Hills, we heard of this outfit. One man was so badly frozen he died, another lost one leg and both arms. We made camp near the Richards party who had a fine fire going. The tents had got damp during the trip and were frozen so hard they could not be put up. But we stretched them between the wagons and made a fine windbreak. The wind in¬creased and the temperature had lowered till our thermometer was froze up again. But little we reeked, and we wotted not of it. With unlimited wood at hand and a big fire, this was solid comfort. After supper we were seated around the fire telling bedtime and various other brands of stories, when suddenly and old gray mare tried to back over some of us to get to the fire and the rest of the stock were standing close and looking wistful. There was no grass to be had and we had cut down a couple of green cottonwoods for the stock to gnaw and brose on. But it was too cold for them to even try to eat. We took the axes and all got out and built a log heap in as sheltered place as we could find and set it on fire. Those horses and mules backed up to that fire and stood there all night so close they burnt the hair off their tails. About 4 a.m. the wind died down entirely, and by daylight the sky was free of clouds, but the cold was intense. We had a couple of miles up grade to reach the divide between Willow creek and the Little Missouri, but the snow had all blown off there and we made the top in good shape. From there we could see Stoneville and through the clear air it seemed but a short distance away. But we knew it was 12 miles away. If I were to live a thousand years I would never forget the trip across that valley. The snow there had not blown off and in places was 18 inches deep. While the Richards party was ahead, they did not make enough of a trail for our team to travel on. Dave and Mac seemed to have weakened and having bundled themselves up in their overcoats stayed with the wagon most of the time. So the brunt of the trail breaking fell on Bill and I. All day long we went back and forth on a dead run and yet we nearly froze to death. There were numerous gulleys and at least 12 times during the day we had to take Kate out and help Jack up with the wagon. It was 10 p.m. when we finally reached Stoneville. The first shack we came to was the government telegraph station. Bill and I went in there while the others drove on to the camping place which they could tell by the fire the Richards party had going. The operator told us that from daylight till dark of that day their thermometer registered 57° below zero.
"There Missou", said Bill, "I told you it was cold." The operator said that the night before when the gale of wind was on, it was 46° below. No wonder the stock wanted a fire. After we got armed up and had a good supper in us, we did not feel so bad. Bill bought some oats and we gave the mules the first full feed they had enjoyed in over a month. We made our bed on the warmest snow we could find and turned in. We were in timber, and all night long the trees were popping like rifles, making it sound like a battle was on. The bed seemed chilly and I at least, did little sleeping.
We were all up before dawn for it was more comfortable near a big fire than in bed. It was too cold to think of starting on the road early, and after breakfast I went up to the station to find out how cold it was. The operator sold that at daylight it was 62 below zero and he had just received a dispatch from Fort Assiniboine saying it was 64 below there, a record that I believe still stands for the whole U. S. Very few people except Arctic explorers know the conditions created at such temperatures. I went back to camp and as an experiment, took a pint cup of cold water and threw it as high as I could at the same time scattering it. It fell as dry partials of ice. There was a large sheet iron bucket lying near the fire and Bill said the rest of us could stand up if we wanted to but he was going to have a seat. Bill had put on his last trousers that morning making 4 pairs he was wearing. He turned the bucket upside down near the fire where the ground had thawed slightly and sat down on it. Bills weight pressed the bucket into the thawed ground which now being shaded; froze instantly. Either the bottom of the bucket or the seat of Bills trousers was damp. Not enough bodily heat could get through Bills clothes to counteract the cold that came from outside the bucket and when Bill undertook to arise he was stuck. Froze fast. Here was a predicament. The outside pair were Bills best trousers and it would hardly do to cut the seat out of them. We thought of building a fire all around him to thaw him loose but there was not wood enough cut for that. But we had to get him loose someway for it was about time to pull out. Finally Mac got an ax and chopped the bucket loose, then Bill backed up to the fire and thawed it off and everything was all right. The Richards party said they were going to try for their ranch that night. It was on Hay creek between the Belle Fourche and Redwater and a little over 30 miles distant. Plenty of oats had made old Kate pickup wonderfully and we got along pretty fair, but camped on Iron creek about 5 miles short of the Belle Fourche. We did not stop at Iron creek on the way out and had not tasted the water. The boys chopped a hole in the ice and got some water and I made bread and coffee with it. When we started to eat we found the grub ruined. The water was sour and puckery as tincture of iron and had spoiled everything, so we threw it away and melted snow and got supper again. During the day the temperature had moderated a great deal. But we didn't care for cold now, for we had plenty of pitch wood. We had been invited to stop at the Richards ranch overnight, and next morning we started early with the hope of getting there that day, which we did by 4 o’clock. We had a farewell visit with them and Mrs. Richards served us an excellent supper and breakfast. Leaving early the next morning we camped at night in the foothills about 5 miles from Deadwood, and reached that town the next day at 3 P.M., an old friend of mine named Ruggles had a saloon, and we stopped in front of it and went in to lubricate ourselves a little. Ruggles was behind the bar and I shoved out my paw. He shook hands but said "partner you have a little the best of me, I don't know you." I replied "what, you don't know Wilson?" "Say", he said, "Look in the glass." I did so and did not know myself. Because of the cold we had not washed our faces since leaving the main hunting camp. We had sat around hugging the fire and had got smoked nearly as black as Senegambians, and our clothes were in rags, being burnt full of holes in our endeavors to keep warm. We had not noticed each other’s appearance for it had come on gradual and we were used to it. But we now realized that we were tough looking mugs. Ruggles handed me that mornings Deadwood Pioneer and said read that, indicating an article in the paper. It was a column and a half account of how Ferguson and I had become lost in a blizzard and I had frozen to death and Ferguson was so badly frozen he was not expected to live, and they were bringing him and my body in now. How that account came to be in the paper I never took the trouble to find out. But it was believed there, and my father had been telegraphing all over the country trying to locate us. We had not seen a soul during the six or more weeks we were in camp, and I guess the man who wrote the article drew entirely on his imagination. We pulled on up Whitewood creek a few miles and came to an empty cabin by the roadside and concluded to camp there. Mac was anxious to get home to his family, and said he would walk on to Rockford that night and Bill went with him. The snow in the hills was 6 feet deep on the level everywhere. But the road to Rockford was a mail route and was well broken by travel. Dave and I pulled out in the morning and the mules knowing they were near home struck a good gate. Old Kate had picked up so much she was pulling her share of the load. We reached the Bulldog ranch, which was now owned by Tim Colman whom I had known in Deadwood, a little after 11. Tim insisted on us staying to dinner, and as we had all downhill from there, we done so. We arrived in Rockford before dark. The 4 of us agreed that when we wanted some more sport, it would not be a buffalo hunt in winter.

A BUFFALO HUNT IN THE '80's
By
Limestone (W.E.) Wilson
It was a week before Christmas, 1880. We were in Charlie Hayward's saloon in the little town
of Rockford Black Hills. There were four of us. William Osterhout a graduate of Annapolis,
but who preferred the lure of the west to entering the navy. He stood 6 feet 4 inches, was
finely set up, full of fun and active as a cat. There was David Ferguson, short and stocky,
and ready for anything that offered good clean sport. Then there was George McFadden slim
as a rail but wiry, and a good man to tie to in a pinch. Lastly there was the writer, 20 years
old, 6 feet 2 and growing some. I was known in that country as "Missou", a contraction of
Missouri the state I came there from. For the purpose of this story the others will be known
as Bill, Dave, and Mac. Bill said, "There are Buffalo 150 miles to the northwest". Mac said, "I
have a mighty good team of mules." Dave said, "My credit is good for plenty of grub." I said, "I
am a dandy cook."
So it was settled. The buffalo were fast disappearing, and with the number of hunters there
were in the field at that time, it could be only a year or two till the vast herds that once
roamed the western prairie would be but a memory. So if we were to have a buffalo hunt with
the chance of finding some, now was the time. Ordinarily, it would have been considered a
hazardous proceeding to start on such a trip so near midwinter. But the weather had been
fine all fall and at this time was mild and warm with no snow on the ground, and all the old
timers were prophesying an open winter. We figured that if the good weather held, and we
had reasonable luck, we could bring back a load of meat in a little more than three weeks.
But to be on the safe side we laid in supplies for six or eight weeks. Other equipment
consisted of a new Bain wagon with bows and cover, a 10x12 wall tent and a small stove to
heat it, and plenty of warm bedding. Bill and Mac were armed with Sharps rifles of heavy
calibre, and Dave had a '73 model Winchester while I had a 50 calibre Springfield. There was
plenty of ammunition for all the guns. In addition to my rifle I carried a Colts army pattern
45 and a huge Bowie knife a friend had given me. We pulled out just as dawn was peeping
over the ragged peaks east of town. Our route lay along Little Rapid creek to the head of that
stream. Then down Whitewood creek to Deadwood 25 miles distant from Rockford. The grade
was easy and the road good as the stage ran over it daily, and there was considerable other
travel. After a few miles through a dark and rugged canon we emerged into a flat valley where
the grass was of springtime greenness in the warm sunshine and even flowers were in bloom,
making it hard to realize that the time was late December. About noon we came to the
Bulldog ranch a stopping place kept by a Mrs. Erb better known as Mrs. "Bulldog" whose
meals had a reputation for excellence all over the Hills. Instead of making camp to cook our
dinner we decided to eat with Mrs. Bulldog, for we knew we would get a better dinner that
way and besides it didn't cost anything, for Mac was well acquainted with her and talked her
into trusting us for the dinner. Bill was the only one of us who had any money and we
needed that to buy oats for the mules. But we agreed to pay her with buffalo meat when we
came back. Mrs. Bulldog was a large handsome woman and a splendid performer on the
banjo which she played for us while we ate. There was a Mr. Erb, a small man with one eye.
But he said nothing and seemed to cut little or no figure around the place. Three days
previous to our visit four bandits had come along and held Mrs. Bulldog up. They explained
that they could rob better to music so one of them held a gun on her and forced her to play
while the others cleaned up everything that looked like ready money to the inspiring strains
of Marching through Georgia.
Mrs. Bulldog was sore about it yet. Not on account of her loss apparently, but because she
was forced to furnish music while being robbed. We afterwards learned that in the following
three weeks she was robbed twice more. When we came back we found that Mrs. Bulldog for
some reason or other had sold out and left the country, so she did not get the buffalo meat
we owed her. The mules having had a rest and a good feed made fast time as the road now